‘In the Mouth of Madness’ has the effect of a tap on your shoulder when
you’re sure you’re alone. Director John Carpenter and screenwriter
Michael De Luca demonstrate that they know what works when it comes to
horror. The audience (particularly those who are familiar with the
works of H.P. Lovecraft) may have some idea of where all this is
generally headed and anybody who’s ever seen anything in this genre
will want to yell at the screen when the female lead goes exploring
alone in the middle of the night. However, none of this detracts from
how exuberantly and unnervingly the filmmakers tell their story.

When we meet John Trent (Sam Neill), he’s strait-jacketed and heading
for a solitary cell in a mental institution. He seems violent and
dangerous, but then, the outside world seems more ominous than usual.
We find out why as Trent tells his tale of dread and doom to a
government psychiatrist (David Warner). Flash back to the
not-too-distant past. Trent is an insurance investigator hired by a
publishing house to track down star horror author Sutter Cane (Jurgen
Prochnow). Cane’s best-selling works have been rumored to send "less
stable" readers over the edge. Accompanied by Cane’s editor Linda
Styles (Julie Carmen), Trent tracks the AWOL writer to the weird little
New England town of Hobb’s End. Styles recognizes the place as
something straight out of Cane’s prose to the last detail, not a good
sign, given the kind of things that happen in (and inhabit) the locale.

The DVD is handsome and clear. Set-up, with choice of audio and video
formats, comes before the film starts (both the widescreen and
full-screen versions are on the same side as menu options, rather than
on opposite sides of the disk). A supplemental track features director
John Carpenter and director of photography Gary B. Kibbe. Although
Carpenter provides a few anecdotes about filming - such as actor Neill
being injured by broken glass but soldiering on like a pro - he
primarily interviews Kibbe about the lighting and lenses. This will be
instructive for budding cinematographers, but will likely be pretty dry
for general audiences. More interesting is Carpenter’s observation that
he considers ‘In the Mouth of Madness’ to be part of an "apocalypse
trilogy" that also includes his remake of ‘The Thing’ and ‘Prince of
Darkness.’

Carpenter and De Luca pull off the heady feat of spinning a number of
intellectual plates at once while proceeding to crank tension to the
breaking point. Neill’s central performance is a strong asset, as he
creates a likable figure who moves from blithe skepticism to
incredulity to pathetic terror with zest and conviction. ‘In the Mouth
of Madness’ is a wild, phantasmagoric nightmare in which the oft-abused
ethos of anything-goes-for-a-scare actually works. There’s a fair
amount of humor (most of it on the dark side) to keep us engaged, but
the movie succeeds in eliciting real chills as well. The filmmakers
seem a little unsure of how to cap their achievement at the finale, but
by then they’ve more than put their point across. Although the creepy
glee of ‘Mouth’ contrasts with the dourness of Lovecraft’s fiction, the
essence of that seminal writer’s Cthulhu mythos comes through loud and
clear.